Whilst my comic collection is predominantly superhero based, I do have a thing for old horror comics. I guess you could call it a collection within a collection. Anyway, I picked up these bad boys recently. What do you think?

Batman v Superman. Dawn of Justice

The trailer came out over the weekend at SDCC and it seems that most people are stoked. I know I am. For me, this is possibly the most exciting of the upcoming ‘comic based’ movies. That’s because I’ve invested a huge part of my life into DC Comics. I’m a Batman fan, through and through and I know a lot of the DC history. I have mixed feelings about Superman, but still, there have been epic stories about him and Man of Steel was an excellent start to the DC world.

My first thoughts were how good both Affleck and Cavill look as their respective ‘heroes.’ Casting wise, I have to say, I think they are both perfect. We see the destruction from Man of Steel and Bruce Wayne reacting to it. The film showed us Wonder Woman in action for the first time – she looks pretty awesome. I’m interested to see how she fits into the universe.

We saw some more of the fight between Bats and Supes. That is going to be incredible. That Batman suit! Love it. So Frank Miller! And was that a Robin suit? With Joker grafite? OMG. I assume Robin is already dead. Presumably Jason Todd? We may get to see more of that story in a standalone movie? Maybe in flashbacks? But this is a great way of creating a longstanding history in such an early movie. Zod’s body is presumably taken by Luthor. Will we see Doomsday make an appearance? I have to say, if DC pull this off, they are setting a pretty epic precedent for the universe.

Suicide Squad

Fewer people will be aware of these characters but when it comes to Villains, DC really have an epic line up. And the Suicide Squad is a pretty good start – Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), I suspect, are going to make this movie. Along withe the Joker of course. Jared Leto is going to be creepy by the looks of that first view. Batman makes an appearance, which is a great way of selling this. A dark super ‘villain’ movie will do well and DC have loads of villains to offer, so this could be the start of a crazy universe filled with superpowers and mentalists – who doesn’t like the sound of that?

JLA (Justice League of America)

I am a Bryan Hitch fan. Definitely. But, I do find that some panels and pages are amazing and some are not (and I think I’m probably in the minority in thinking this). Thankfully the amazing ones are so good, it’s worth enduring the not-so-good ones. I enjoyed #1 (not as much as Justice League Darkseid War – see below) but it has a pretty cool concept.

Supermen across the universe keep dying and a tech company ‘Infinity Corporation’ have some understanding on it that they are not fully sharing with Supes or the reader. Enter bad guy (Parasite) and the rest of the JLA and you have a fun explosion of Parasite mimicking their powers. Throughout there is cool art and a pretty epic final page that harks back to old Superman lore. I’ll definitely stick with this, even for one or two ‘widescreen’ Hitch panels.

Widescreen Hitch

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman has never been a character I’ve followed other than her appearances in Justice League stories or DC events. But when I saw that David and Meredith Finch were working on it, I was intrigued. He’s probably in my top 5 favourite artists right now. The work on Wonder Woman is stunning. It really is. The detail, the colour, the outlines – everything is perfect. And the story is pretty good so far.

There is a nice re-introduction of Donna Troy (one of my earliest crushes as a teenager) albeit a different Donna from the one we knew pre New 52. As I say, Wonder Woman is not a character I normally follow but I will definitely stick with this new story arc and see it out. If you like the idea of a strong female lead, mythical (and somewhat magical) back stories and epic art, this is the book for you.

Angry?

Justice League (Darkseid War)

Read it. Just read it. This is shaping up to be the DC comic of the year (everything Convergence should have been maybe). Whilst it isn’t an ‘event’ story it certainly feels larger than one title should. It has a full cast of Justice League characters and runs straight on from the FCBD Divergence comic (it’s definitely worth reading that before #41).

John’s storytelling rarely fails him and here we have what feels like the Darkseid story the character was created for. Fabok’s art is just out of this world. The attention to detail is startling. He and David Finch are really pushing the boundaries at the moment. If you are a DC fan, this is a must read.